General Chat

Sounds more like a punch Mel, that is a lot of fruit. And Pimms as well

O and its in pimms.

Iv'e just made a HUGE fresh fruit salad for tea. It has apple, melon, necterine, grapes, cherries, pear, blueberries and lemon juice.

yes Mandy and I did put water out for them yesterday, the dish will be full again now as it has just tipped down with rain for about 20 minutes. Stopped again now and still very muggy, 22 degrees.

Well no gardening today then that is three days I have not done any gardening. I have changed the bed, washed the bedding and re-made the bed, done the monthly accounts check, wrote a letter for a correspondence magazine and prepared veg for tonight's roast chicken dinner. I think that is my lot for today.

It really tipped down here for about twenty minutes now the suns out again and it's quite hot .

I was reading a bit in our paper about a lady who has a hedgehog rescue place she was saying about putting a shallow bowl of water out for them and food as in this hot weather they weren't getting water and as the ground is so dry they can't get the worms either she said mum's are leaving their babies trying to find food and as there's nothing for them they are really suffering, she had lots more hogs in than normal.
I expect that's why they have moved into your compost bin Anng there's worms in there for them .

Oh it's really black out the front now looks like it's going to tip it down again .

raining here now and very muggy. I got caught out in it as it seemed to come from nowhere. Not heavy but persistant.

Yes they were the ones Mandy 50p a pot from the lady up at the crossraods on the way to the shop.

Its 22 here and still raining very lightly. There are a lot of birds on the feeder this morning mainly blue tits and sparrows and the woodpecker.

Morning all,

We have rain :-D it rained overnight and filled the water butts and the old dustbin we have as an over flow was full too , now it's really heavy drizzle but nice and bright and really muggy .
Vera I'll see if I can blow some your way.

Mel those Gladioli are so pretty were they the 50p ones they were a bargain.

Anng I looked at the firework Agapanthus that's a pretty one ,I suppose the best thing with trying to find draught tolerant plants is to ask in the garden centres ,I expect there will be lots of people asking after all the heat we've had and lots will have lost plants in the heatwave.

Ann I expect your busy getting your things back in place after the clean ,did they manage to get the oil off .
Sounds as they will get more work from your neighbours after doing z good job on yours .

Family came this morning first Sunday for several weeks as they have both been so busy at work , we got son to adjust our front door as it had dropped a little and was getting hard to lock ,few minutes and he had done it so that was a good job done .

Oh Suns out now and I'd better soon think about what to have for lunch ,bbl

No rain to speak of yet Mel. We have had a couple of very light showers but we wouldn't have known if OH hadn't been outside and felt a few drops. The farmers are getting desperate now.. It was a very hot and uncomfortable night, even OH didn't sleep well, but it seems a bit cooler now. It's very grey out and quite a strong breeze has got up so I've opened some windows to try and cool the house down a bit.

I've just got a Tesco order ready for delivery tomorrow so I'll be interested to see hw many subs I get.

AnnG, I love agapanthus as you can see from my avatar photo. I've got 6 pots of them grouped together along the front of the conservatory. Mostly they are blue but I do have one white one. I'll look out for the one you mentioned. It sounds pretty. OH has just picked more blueberries. We left them for the birds but they haven't touched them which is unusual so OH decided to pick them for us. I don't suppose there are many.

I can't believe your surgery won't take back your tablets Mel. I know they cannot reissue them to anyone else but pharmacies are supposed to take back unwanted medicines for safe disposal. If I have anything I can't use or something I've bought over the counter and it's got out of date I always take them to any pharmacy and they always take them back. I'd be inclined to politely ask them how you are supposed to dispose of them if they can't take them. I hope your OH is feeling a bit better today.

I'd better get on with a few jobs before sorting out Sunday dinner. Have a nice day everyone.

No rain here, quite bright and 21 degrees. waiting for Tesco, two subs one of which S Sk milk instead of skimmed will go back.

Still raining. I wonder if our Vera has had any rain yet?

Morning all,

Been raining most of the night here. It started yesterday very very fine rain that hardly wet the ground but it started to really rain last night. Everywhere looks wet this morning but how far it goes down I don't know yet as Iv'e not been out yet.

Well one thigns for sure no gardening is getting done today and its windy here too.

Good morning all. grey here this morning but dry. Yesterday evening we had a shower that lasted about half an hour maybe even to an hour but I doubt it really did much good. Better than nothing though and maybe it did top up the water barrel.

When i went to my friends yesterday to see her garden full of containers, I loved the four containers she had with Agapanthus. The blue is lovely but my favourite was called firework. so pretty mottled blue and white.

Thanks Ann for your suggestions, I will bear those in mind. I will actually copy them onto a list I am keeping. I do have some large sedums in the garden.

Evening All,

It's been a bit muggy here today so I've stayed inside sorting through papers and doing the food order for tomorrow. OH went to a match at Retford which he really enjoyed.

As regards your pots AnnG, it depends on whether they will be in shade or not and how big the pots are I think. I have 3 pots with Hostas in that are near a north facing fence and apart from a little watering they have kept going strong for years. I have planted up shallower pots with a mix of different coloured house leeks (sempervivums) and slate or rocks and that looks effective. I put slate chips between the plants and that helps stop the moisture evaporating. I do it with my wall pots too. Lavender Hidcote would be a nice choice as it doesn't get too tall or some of the other Lavenders and would smell nice. The fleshy sedums would be good and have a lot of varieties flowering at different times. The butterflies love those. Mrs O has some of the taller ones in her front garden and they are still looking good. You could pop a few annuals like Mesembryanthemums between plants to give some temporary colour too. I'll see if I can take a few photos of my short alpine sedums tomorrow to send you. They are growing among the slate chippings and some have planted themselves in the gravel.

Mel that Gladdy is beautiful and I love the colour. You are lucky to have the deer and fawn visit you. Those apples are obviously a tasty treat for them but I hope they don't want too much in the way of a starter!!

There's not really any excuse for your scripts to be wrong is there. We have to request our scripts, but we can do it online now, although we have carried on dropping them at the surgery for now as I just feel something will go wrong. I think we have to allow 3 working days then before we pick our meds up from our chosen pharmacy.

Yes, everywhere does look brighter now it's clean Vera and I think nextdoor are going to get theirs done as they said they were impressed what care they took. they shovelled all the mess up and hosed down all the road so no-one would be taking the dirt up their own drives. I still need to wipe down some bits of the garage doorframe which is brown like the mud on it, but it's good the window cleaner is due next week as the windows could do with a better clean. I am wondering now whether it would be worth getting the drive sealed? Has anyone else done this and did it help keep it clean for longer? That was a nice lunch with your friends and good that the chef offered some salad to go with your F&C. I prefer garden peas to mushy ones given a choice but OH always goes for mushy ones.

It is actually raining hope it lasts a while

I don’t think you realise how large my compost bin is Mel. Imagine reaching into a large chest freezer it is about the same or ebp en deeper.. I will actually leave it for now they can live there I just will continue to make compost for next year in the other one. I don’t have the energy or strength to move it. I have probably used most of the compost in the one the hogs are in.

It may be a young one Anng although hogs noses are small on an adult hog. Can you not get an old big bucket and cut a hole in it and put that over hoggy and then move your compost bin somewhere else? You need a hog box!!! Think of all the slug and snails and beetles it will eat in your garden. Resident slug patrol..........

Just opened the top of the compost bin ans I am almost 100% sure I saw a tiny pointed nose in amongst the leaves so looks like there is a baby hog in there, no sign of Mum though I don't think we have any rates but I hope little one is safe. Mum is probably out somewhere eating.